Until now, cutting bottoms of storage tanks has typically been performed using oxyacetylene torches or gouges. Personnel's exposure to noxious fumes, the risk of personal injury, and asset loss as a result of a fire or explosion are key concerns, requiring protective measures and constant vigilance. With Safe-Cut, these risks are mitigated and the freed resources can be utilized for more productive tasks. Safe-Cut -- a service of Mass Technology Corp. -- is a unique, patented mobile hydrocutting system for cutting steel plate using ultrahigh- pressure water. It is designed specifically for cutting storage tank floors, roofs and side shells. Although Safe-Cut's main focus is on storage tank bottoms, the system can also be easily adapted to include ship decks, rig and production platform decks, pipes, vessels, concrete, asphalt, fiberglass, pontoon and barge decks, custom large-section cuts and custom hazardous-location cuts.
"Mass Technology is one of the best, most professional outfits I've dealt with."
-Sloan Naisbitt, Great Basin Industrial
Many throughout the industry have complimented Mass Technology and its Safe-Cut service.
"After working side by side with their crews at a local refinery, we hired Mass Technology to perform critical hydrocutting on Midwest Steel projects at refineries in Norco and Meraux, Louisiana," said Christopher G. Given, vice president of business development, Midwest Steel Co. Inc. "Using Safe-Cut, Mass Technology completed both projects on time, with no extra charges and without a single first-aid case, which is quite an accomplishment while cutting steel with 50,000 psi of water pressure. Their performance has earned Mass Technology preferred contractor status at Midwest Steel, and we recently hired them for another major project at a Houston area refinery."
In October 2016, Frontier Integrity Solutions used Safe-Cut on a large project for a liquids terminal facility in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Mass Technology cut and removed the floors of two large petroleum storage tanks.
"Even though it sounds like one project, these two tanks were combined," said Jeremy Jarreau, chief pipeline inspector, Frontier Integrity Solutions. "One tank was 220 feet in diameter, and the other was 200 feet in diameter. Mass Technology was able to cover both tanks with two crews and run them simultaneously. Mass Technology actually finished ahead of schedule, its safety was on point and the equipment was top-notch. I was very pleased with them, and I would definitely pass Mass Technology's name along if I was ever asked about the Safe-Cut service."
Great Basin Industrial Project Manager Sloan Naisbitt first started using Mass Technology's Safe-Cut service in 2013, and he's used the service six times to date.
"Mass Technology has worked in hazardous atmospheres and confined spaces, cutting tank floors at refineries in Utah and Texas," Naisbitt explained. "Mass Technology hydrocut the outer layers of the tank bottoms so we could remove them and get to the hazardous material underneath.
"I've been working in the industry since 1991, and Mass Technology is one of the best, most professional outfits I've dealt with. The company doesn't take any short cuts, their employees are consistent with their safety practices, and they complete jobs when they say they're going to be finished. I wish I would have known about Mass Technology's Safe- Cut service five years ago, because it would have saved me a ton of money on projects. I will continue using Safe-Cut in the future when I need hydrocutting."
Safe-Cut's patented RAGWORM® systems can cut through both coatings and bottom plate in one pass, cutting quarter-inch carbon steel plate at an average speed of 2.5 feet per minute per cutter head, and can cut through steel plate in excess of 6 inches in thickness. This process is much faster and safer than cutting with torches or gouges.
In addition to being safer than torches, Safe-Cut's water jet cutting is more efficient because it can cut through multiple layers of steel plates and epoxy or fiberglass liners all in one pass. When a torch is used, the liners must be painstakingly blasted away or delaminated from the steel plate prior to cutting.
For more information about Safe- Cut, contact Carl Bracken at cbracken@ safe-cut.com or call (713) 725-6939.
